


Through That Door

by CaveFelem



Category: Rush (2013)
Genre: Drunken Shenanigans, F/M, M/M, Rivalry, Rough Kissing, Sexual Frustration, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 22:19:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/997581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaveFelem/pseuds/CaveFelem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He doesn't even need to go anywhere. We're bringing the party directly to him. It's like the ultimate room service."</p><p>It doesn't turn out quite the way James envisioned it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This story is about the characters as portrayed in the movie Rush. It's not an attempt to claim that any of this happened in real life.
> 
> Thanks to People Who Shall Not Be Named, who convinced me to post this story.

At some later point in time, James Hunt might be ready to admit that he has had finer ideas. Right now, with alcohol humming in his blood and an attractively disheveled woman hanging from his arm, it feels like the finest he's ever had.

"Are you sure he'll like it?" she asks for the second time in the past two minutes as they make their unsteady way along the hotel corridor, stopping to swig a shared beer on the way.

"Positive", James assures her. "Who wouldn't? He doesn't even need to go anywhere. We're bringing the party directly to him. It's like the ultimate room service."

*

It doesn't turn out quite the way James envisioned it.

"Hello, Niki", he says while sticking his leg in through the door so he can't close it on them. "There's someone here who wants to meet you. Say hi to Katie. We've been very, very good friends since, uh... yesterday, and she was very eager to meet you."

"Hello, Niki", she echoes, pushes her way past James into the room and saunters directly to her new target. James can't help but admire the view of her from the back as she goes. Or the look of utter bafflement on Niki's face when she drapes her arms around his neck and ─

"Would somebody explain what the hell is going on?"

Katie shoots James a questioning glance as Niki disentangles himself from her embrace and takes a long step back. James spreads his hands and arranges his face in his most radiant grin.

"You know I'm a generous guy", he says, "and it didn't seem right for you to be lonely and bored while everyone else is having fun. So I thought I'd bring the party to you. The more the merrier, right?"

Niki ignores him and takes a long look of Katie instead, and James does likewise, as it seems like a good excuse. Dark glossy hair mussed up in a just-rolled-out-of-bed way, long legs, impractical fashionable shoes. Hesketh T-shirt. Shit, the T-shirt probably wasn't a good move.

"You are dead drunk", is Niki's verdict, "and probably high. You shouldn't even be here, or waste time with this loser."

Well, now, that was unnecessarily harsh.

Of course James hadn't really believed a surprise girl and some booze would turn grumpy Austrians into instant party animals. At the very least, though, Niki could have gotten pissed off in that amusing way, where James can tell he isn't truly angry underneath. Now he just seems... genuinely angry, his anger like a tangible barrier around him as he sidesteps Katie and approaches James.

"Of all your stupid ideas, this must be the worst. I know you see it as your job to piss me off as much as you can, especially before a race, but that is between you and me. Using other people to get to me is a shitty thing."

He turns back to Katie, giving James the cold shoulder, and the anger in his voice goes down a notch. "James will take you down to reception now and have them call you a taxi. Then he will see that you get into it like the _responsible_ man he is."

"Aw, that's no fun", she protests with an intoxicated giggle, which turns into a frown when Niki refuses to give any ground. "I was looking forward to it, too. James said... he said all kinds of things..."

That right there is James's cue. "Alright then, Katie, we're going", he interrupts and wraps his arm around her shoulders. "If our uptight friend here wants to be that way, it's his loss. Come on, I'll get that taxi for you."

He escorts Katie out while she clings to him like a limpet, which makes walking an awkward shuffle and detracts from the impact of his exit. In the doorway, he glances at Niki over his shoulder. Niki is still standing there with his arms crossed, eyes sharp and narrowed, watching him go.

*

James does actually get that taxi for her. She has stopped protesting the abrupt end to the evening, most likely because he gives her a sloppy, lingering kiss every time she is about to start. It keeps her content until the taxi arrives. James helps her to the back seat, hands the driver whatever cash is in his back pocket (it's probably too much, but he doesn't care) and manages to muster enough enthusiasm to wave her goodbye. She waves back, blows him a kiss from behind the glass.

He has already forgotten about her when he wanders past the rigid back of the reception lady and up the stairs.

He ends up back at Niki's door. Mostly because there's no more alcohol left in his own room, he tells himself ─ not that Niki is likely to have any more in store ─ but also because of that stare, angry and tense and yet calculating in a way that twists his stomach into an uneasy knot. 

"Fuck", he mutters to no one in particular before raising his voice. "Hey, Niki?" 

There's no answer.

"Thought you'd want to know I did _the responsible thing_." 

It's quiet for a few more long seconds, and then there's the sound of footsteps on the carpet and the lock rattling. Another few seconds, and the door opens just enough to show Niki's face.

"What do you want, congratulations? For being a decent human being?"

"Hey, I'm a decent human being. All I want is for my fellow men... and women... to have a good time."

Niki doesn't respond, but his eyebrows rise a disbelieving fraction.

"She was pretty disappointed, you know", James tries a different tactic. "She was very much looking forward to getting to know the great Niki Lauda."

"Yes, because you 'said all kinds of things' to her. What things?"

"Only good things, naturally", James says and sounds too quick and glib even to his own ears. "How you're the life of the party and amazing company. Handsome, too."

"Fuck you, James", comes the exasperated answer. "I like you even less than usual when you're lying. Now come on in."


	2. Chapter 2

Niki's room is almost inhumanly neat, at least compared to James's own. When James pulls out the one and only chair, he takes a reflexive peek first to make sure he won't seat himself on anything breakable or unsavoury, because in his room that would be a very real possibility. Of course there are no such things here. No clutter on Niki's bed, either: the bedspread isn't even wrinkled.

"I don't really know what to say", he admits when Niki doesn't volunteer to speak first. "Did you want me to say I'm sorry? For a bit of fun?"

"At other people's expense." Niki gives him a sideways glance. "As usual."

"Oh, come on, that's not fair. It's not like I dragged her here kicking and screaming. I'm sure you could have managed to show her a decent time, too."

"And what about you?" If Niki stood closer, the pointing forefinger would likely put James's eye out. "What were you planning on doing while I showed her a decent time?"

It's a damn good question from a rat who's too damn perceptive. James digs into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, finds exactly the nothing he knew was there, but it gives him the perfect excuse to take his time answering.

The truth is, he's not sure. He'd had flashes of possibilities in his mind, never fleshed out too much in any conclusive detail. Now that he's forced to come up with an answer, though, he can't come up with any that would both have the weight of honesty behind them and not sound all wrong.

Because it simply doesn't sound right to say that he wanted to watch. To see what Niki looks like when he's being kissed, with someone else's hands down his back and in his hair. To see his rival's composure unravel for once.

He's been quiet for too long and he knows it.

"I'd better go", he says half-heartedly, but makes no move to get up from the chair.

"Sure. Run away when you don't want to answer me. Go find another girl and another drink. Meanwhile I will get ready to win tomorrow."

That gets to James, that smug self-assurance, and the hot spike of adrenaline combined with the alcohol conspire to get him to his feet. He just wants that knowing half-smirk off Niki's face. He wants Niki as off-balance as he feels himself. 

He registers Niki's posture tensing, preparing to dodge a punch, perhaps, and takes the alternative line instead.

*

He hasn't thought past that moment and his most immediate desire ─ when does he ever? ─ but astonishingly, Niki doesn't pull back, and his mouth is softer than it has any right to be, not exactly reciprocating but not resisting either. There's that slightest hint of scratchy stubble on Niki's upper lip, raking across James's nerves, effectively reminding him that this is really happening. That it's not just yet another girl.

Feeling, he thinks, is just as good as seeing.

It has to end before he sobers up too much, or before Niki hits him, or before he gets too light-headed from forgetting to breathe properly. He lifts his head, and Niki _still_ hasn't pulled back, and somehow his own hands have ended up grabbing bunches of Niki's shirt. He loosens his grip slowly, with effort, one finger at a time. He doesn't look Niki in the eye.

"Now at least you are being honest", Niki says, and there's a catch in his voice that's entirely new to James and that affects him way too much for comfort. "It was never about her, was it, generous guy? It was about this. Getting to me. Messing with my concentration. Making me afraid of a scandal..."

James starts to object, because whatever he might have told himself, it isn't like that. Niki cuts in mercilessly, still so close, radiating cleverness and body heat.

"But you failed, James. I am not afraid."

It's not just on the track that Niki is fast. In the space of half a breath, he's managed to take a rough handful of James's hair, yank his head down and close in on him in turn. Their teeth clash briefly, Niki huffs, and then there are tongues involved, which takes it beyond any sort of a joke into a dark, dirty, forbidden territory.

Sure, James has kissed men before. He's James Hunt, he gets around, for a lark if nothing else. But it's never been anything like this, not even close. It's never been for real. It's never turned him on ─ but this does, it's no use denying that, with Niki all firm and slender under his hands and Niki's thigh wedged aggressively between his. 

"This is crazy", he begins and ends on a moan, yes, a fucking _moan_ that he hates himself for, but Niki has bit him on the lip and it hurts so good.

"You started it." A glint of triumph in Niki's eyes. "Don't talk to me about crazy." The tip of his tongue sticking out at James, that bloody mannerism that needled James so much before he gave any conscious thought to why, is now something he wants to kiss off Niki's face. He attempts to do so, but Niki withdraws just barely out of reach.

"What now?" It sounds almost whiny, and now he'd prefer to be moaning rather than this.

"You started it", Niki repeats. "I finish it. Go back to your room. I am going to bed early."

_What the goddamn unbelievable fuck?_

"Wait, no, you can't be serious. You can't just... dismiss me like room service", he protests. "I'm not stupid. Don't think I can't tell you want it just as much. Maybe more. When did you last get laid, anyway?"

(That image is in his mind now, and it's not helping him feel any less empty and frustrated.)

"The difference between you and me", Niki says and runs his fingers through his hair, "is that I have self-control and you do not. I don't always get everything I want immediately, but I can live with it. Oh, and I also win races."

So that's the way it's going to be. Just desserts, tables turned and all that poetic crap.

"We'll see about that tomorrow, won't we?" Yes, he might turn this into a victory yet, channel all the lust and frustration into leaving Niki far behind on the track. That is, the parts of it that he doesn't channel into a fast, furious encounter he'll be having as soon as he gets to his room, only this time it'll have to be with his own hand.

"Go get your beauty sleep, James." If not for his mouth kissed an obscene red and the mussed-up hair, Niki would appear entirely unruffled again. "Maybe you will get second place tomorrow."

James goes.

*

Later, showered and attempting to sleep in a bed that feels too soft and too empty, he remembers a thing Niki said. _I don't always get everything I want immediately._ The implications of that last word come crashing down on him, and after that, he doesn't sleep a wink. 

The next day, he finishes 1.59 seconds behind Niki's winning time and gets sprayed with champagne.


End file.
